North Antrim's icy footpath plight brought to the Assembly

North Antrim DUP MLA Mervyn Storey made reference to the area's icy plight in the Assembly last week.

Mr Storey (pictured) asked the Minister for Regional Development - Conor Murphy - to clarify whether Roads Service or local councils were responsible for the clearing of ice and snow from footpaths in town centres throughout the province.

And he was given assurances that steps are being taken in order to try and secure agreement between all parties on what can be done to deal with the problem in the future.

When asked by Mr Storey to identify who was responsible for clearing the paths, Mr Murphy replied: "There is no statutory duty on Roads Service or, indeed, on district councils, which have responsibilities for street cleaning, to salt or clear snow and ice from footways.

"That said, the Member (Mr Storey) will be aware that Roads Service provides salt boxes at strategic locations that can be used by the public on a self-help basis to help to prevent the formation of snow and ice on pavements and roads."

Mr Storey replied: "That is regrettable, after what can only be described as the horrendous situation across Northern Ireland and in my constituency, in particular, where there have been numerous falls as a result of no one — neither Roads Service nor the local councils — taking responsibility for clearing footways.

"I am sure that the Minister is being inundated, as we all are, with queries about the issue. Will he consider the Highways Act 1980 that was introduced in England to give statutory responsibility to local authorities for salting footpaths in particular? The Minister made reference to "fall down" in his previous answer, and we had numerous "fall downs" over an intense period of severe weather. We cannot allow that situation to develop again."

"I sympathise entirely with what the Member is saying," said Mr Murphy.

"I do not think that there is any Assembly Member here who has not had experience of that over the past weeks or who has not had to deal with constituents. Indeed, I had to bring a family member to a fracture clinic over Christmas, and I met people there who had suffered injuries.

"I will give the Member some background on how we have arrived at this situation. Following the most fundamental review of winter services in 2001, the then Minister proposed that in periods of prolonged lying snow, he would seek to enlist the help of other agencies, such as district councils, to assist in clearing busy town centre footways.

"It was in that context that he wrote to each council outlining proposals for partnering arrangements for the removal of snow and ice from town centre footways and pedestrian areas. Roads Service followed up that initial contact by writing to each council explaining its proposals in detail and enclosing a proposed model agreement.

"In consultation with NILGA, Roads Service drew up a draft legal agreement, to which the councils' response was very limited. The councils' main concerns regarding the proposals were around the public-liability aspect of such arrangements. The model arrangement made it clear that, for those purposes, councils would be acting as agents of the Department and would, therefore, enjoy a similar indemnity against claims for injury or damage resulting from the presence of ice or snow to that of others acting as agents of the Department.

"However, the Department could not accept the councils' statutory liability as an employer or for acts of negligence by the councils' workforce. Although some councils indicated a willingness to participate in the proposed arrangements, unfortunately, only two councils signed up to the agreement.

"Therefore, there was a discussion in 2001 to try to broker an arrangement whereby councils would become involved in the gritting of footways. Given that the gritting carried out by Roads Service largely involves machines and vehicles and that the gritting of footpaths would be manual work, I think that it would be much more suited to local government. I had a conversation with people from local government who told me about staff having to go home on days when they could have been out doing that type of work. I think that it is sensible to try to revisit that discussion. I have already asked the head of Roads Service to do that, and, in recent weeks, I have spoken to people in local government.

"I think that there is a willingness to revisit the issue and to try to crack the problems that resulted in only two councils out of 26 agreeing to sign up to the proposals.

"I share the Member's view that it is necessary to close the gap and to ensure that, while Roads Service is paying attention to the roads network and to keeping traffic moving, some attention is paid to the footways, too."

Roads Service, members of the Ballymoney Chamber of Commerce and Ballymoney Borough Council are to meet again this week for an update on the situation.